He looked calmly into my face, but there were tears in his eyes.
"I could not have told you, for had I told you such a foolish falsehood I would have remembered it. Let us talk of something else."
“Very good,” I said, pleasantly. He was trying to forget the past.
At that moment there came to us the vigorous clamor of an old cow bell.
“It is the bell that calls the boys to their evening meal.”
“Yes?”
“Come, let us hurry, so we may be served at the first table, for you are hungry.”
II
The holy Vedas teach us that as we pass from life to life, Time places gentle fingers over the eyes of memory, lest we become disheartened by past errors and falter enslaved by the fears of what we have been. Like the child who, having worked out a problem on his slate, erases it all, keeping only the answer, so we have within our soul-life the result of our past experiences; all the rest is erased.
Who cares about the detailed account of all the happenings along the path we have traveled? We know intuitively that much of the past must be condemned, but that which concerns us vitally is the life we aim to live to-day.